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  • Sermon: The Holy Trinity Pt. 3 - Faith Seeking Understanding

    Sermon: The Holy Trinity Pt. 3 - Faith Seeking Understanding
    2025/06/16
    The Holy Trinity Pt. 3 – Faith Seeking Understanding Sunday, June 15th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Deuteronomy 29:29 Prayer Father, we thank you for the mystery of our salvation, the mystery of who You are as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As we seek now to understand just a small fragment of that mystery by studying the Scriptures, we ask for light to dispel the darkness of ignorance and sin. For we believe what the Lord Jesus taught saying, ‘blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ Grant us such purity and reverence for Your Word now, in Jesus’ name, Amen. Introduction For the last two Sundays, we have been attempting to climb the most difficult mountain in all of Christian doctrine. That is, the mystery of the Holy Trinity. How is God One, and yet Three in One? How are the three divine persons really distinct, and yet each the One Divine Essence. This has been our study and meditation for the last two weeks, and this morning since it is Trinity Sunday we shall have one more attempt at grasping this truth. Now whenever you are attempting something difficult and strenuous, it is helpful to remind yourself why you are doing this hard thing in the first place. I remember long ago sitting in my high school calculus class and wondering why am I here? How is calculus going to help me get a job? What do derivatives have to do with my life? And because I did not have Professor O’Dell as my teacher, I dropped out of calculus, only to have to retake it later in college (even then I think I got a C). I imagine most of us in this room have a similar story, perhaps not with math but in some other area of life. If we don’t see or understand the reason why, the purpose of doing a hard thing, we are tempted to give up, or we never even try. And sadly, that is how a lot of people approach their relationship with God. They think that God is so high up there, and I am so low down here, the Bible is such a long and big book, and my attention span and memory is so short, therefore it would be either pride or presumption, folly or fruitless to attempt to try to really get to know Him. And indeed, there are many dangers to avoid if you want to know God. God himself warns of approaching Him without fear and reverence and humility. And yet, that high and glorious God has come down to us in Jesus Christ so that we might know him and have a real living personal relationship with him. Moreover, he has come down and sent the Holy Spirit into our very hearts. He has bequeathed to the church the Scriptures through which He invites us, nay commands us, to search him out and know Him. It says in Psalm 105:4, “Seek the Lord, and his strength: Seek his face evermore.” And in Jeremiah 29:13, “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” Paul prays for the church in Colossians 1:10, “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Why do people climb mountains? Why do people attempt hard, dangerous, and difficult things? They do it for the glory. For the views from the top. If they are virtuous, for the formation of character. Even those who only do it for the thrill or the excitement or the vanity of social media have made a value judgment, that the risk is worth the reward, the pain is worth the payoff, the sacrifice is worth the investment. And so for good and biblical reasons it is most appropriate to liken the hard work of increasing in our knowledge of God (as Paul prays that we do) to the climbing up a mountain. When God created Adam and Eve, he placed them in a garden on a mountain from which four rivers flowed down. And we call the fall into sin a Fall, in part because we fell down that mountain of the knowledge of God and lost our intimate friendship with Him. And so later, when by grace God reveals his name to Moses (see Exodus 3, and Exodus 33), he reveals His name on a mountain. When God reveals His law and will to Israel, He does so from the mountain. When God commands a temple to be built for worship, he commands it to be built on a mountain. Where does Christ go to reveal his glory to Peter, James, and John? The mount of transfiguration. And most importantly, where was Jesus Christ crucified? From where did Jesus commission the apostles to baptize in the Triune Name? On a mountain. So this idea of ascending the mountain of God is a motif that runs from Genesis to Revelation. It acknowledges that we as sinners have fallen from grace, we are way down here in the valley of the shadow of death, and yet God by His grace calls us back to Himself. And therefore, this ascent to God is a most fitting theme to make your own, to explain the journey of your life. What is your autobiography? It is carrying a cross in Jesus’ footsteps, following him from one place to another. From the place that Jesus first ...
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    46 分
  • Sermon: The Holy Trinity Pt. 2 - Filioque

    Sermon: The Holy Trinity Pt. 2 - Filioque
    2025/06/16
    The Holy Trinity Pt. 2 – Filioque Sunday, June 8th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA John 20:19–23 Prayer Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus who has power to forgive sins. And we thank you on this Pentecost Sunday for the Holy Spirit, who was given to the apostles and their successors so that the church today may bind and loose, remit and retain, as ministers of Christ on earth. We ask for your blessing now as we approach and contemplate the highest of all mysteries, who you are in yourself. Teach us now by the Spirit of Truth, in the name of Jesus, and Amen. Introduction Every Lord’s Day in our worship service, after we confess our sins, we arise and confess our common faith. This is an important act of worship, because it says in Romans 10:9-10, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” And so from the earliest days of the Apostolic Church, it became necessary to confess the Lord Jesus, his full divinity, his perfect humanity, his death and resurrection for sinners, Jew and Gentile alike. It was necessary to confess these truths in such a way that no false Jesus or false gospel could be understood. We find in Scripture itself various creed-like statements. Romans 10:9-10 is one example. Another is what Paul writes in 1 Timothy 3:16, “Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” You can hear the creed-like rhythm of that confession of faith. So creeds became necessary in the church for two main reasons. 1) To protect and preserve the truth, and 2) to more quickly and understandably propagate the truth. Especially in a time before everyone had a personal copy of the Bible! The earliest heresies in the church said that Jesus was either a created being and therefore not equal to the Father in divinity (what became later known as Arianism), or that he was not really a human being with a nature like ours (we call this Gnosticism or Docetism), or that the Son and Spirit were just God the Father wearing different masks, no real distinction in persons (Sabellianism). So even in the New Testament we find various heresies popping up that need to be refuted (much of the New Testament is written to refute such errors). And as time went on, new heresies arose that required new refutations, new articulations of the common faith once received. So the creeds did not invent or create new doctrines, they were meant to clarify and make explicit what the Word of God had always taught. The purpose of creeds is to make explicit what is implicit, that is, logically contained within that simple confession that Jesus is Lord. And so while it might seem trivial or routine to some that we confess the Nicene Creed every Lord’s Day, it is actually a matter of salvation or damnation that we believe and confess rightly the true Jesus and none other. Because only the true Jesus can save. Now this morning we are in part 2 of a short series on The Holy Trinity, and because it is Pentecost Sunday, I want to consider more closely the person of the Holy Spirit. Who He is, and what He does. And so the outline of my sermon is as follows. Outline First, I will give you a brief history lesson on what is called the Filioque controversy, which is about answering the question, Who is the Holy Spirit as unique Divine Person?Second, we’ll consider, How is the Holy Spirit’s procession from Father and Son reflected in the life of the church? So 1) Who is the Holy Spirit? And 2) How is the Holy Spirit manifest in the church? #1 – A Church History Lesson The year is 589 AD. And a church council has been called in Toledo, Spain to address the rise of Arianism and Sabellianism amongst the Spanish Goths. Recall that Arianism teaches that Jesus is not consubstantial (of the same nature) with the Father, and it therefore introduced subordination and difference of essence within the Godhead and divided/destroyed the unity of the Trinity. Arianism was the long archenemy of true Christian faith and the reason for which the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), and the Council of Constantinople (381) had convened and written the Nicene Creed. These creeds where in large part written to exclude and refute Arianism, and later Sabellianism.Now at this Third Council of Toledo (589), the newly converted Spanish king, King Reccared, said that the Holy Spirit is not only from the Father, but is a Patre Filioque, from the Father and the Son. And this was a doctrine that had long been taught in the Latin West, most famously by St. Augustine and later in the Athanasian Creed. However, it had never been confessed as part of the Nicene Creed.This idea that...
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    49 分
  • Sermon: CKA Graduation 2025 - The Man As City

    Sermon: CKA Graduation 2025 - The Man As City
    2025/06/09
    CKA Graduation 2025 Friday, June 6th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Proverbs 25:28 Prayer Father, we thank you for the end of one chapter, and the beginning of another, and as these two graduates, these two young men, go forth into the world we ask you to protect them, to preserve them, and to prosper them in every way. We ask for your blessing upon the ministry of Your Word now, and we ask it in Jesus’ name, Amen. Introduction As we just heard from Proverbs 25:28, every person is like a city. And this evening the question I want to pose for all of us, but especially to Ezra and Chapman is, What kind of city are you? What kind of city are you becoming? What kind of city do you want to become? According to King Solomon, if you lack self-control, if you cannot rule your own spirit, your passions, your body, your mind, then you are like a city broken down and without walls. You are a city in ruins. A city easily invaded and overcome by others. However, on the flipside, this also means that if you can control your spirit, if you are learning to bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit which includes self-control, then imagine what you can become?You can become a great and magnificent city, with high and majestic walls. Or as Jesus says in Matthew 5:14, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.”So what kind of city are you? A city of darkness and decay, or a city of light and refuge? Regardless of what you think yourself presently to be, I am just going to assume that everyone here has room to grow in their ability to rule their own spirit. Whether because of our own sin, or weakness, or ignorance, all of us have walls in need of repair, gates in need of mending. All of us have areas in our city where we lack self-control and need to be built up into mature manhood in Christ. For example, the Apostle James warns of how difficult it is to rule your own tongue. We might liken the tongue to the media outlet or newspaper of your city. He says in James 3:2, “For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.” And then he says a little later in verses 7-8, “For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”Jesus says in Matthew 12:34-35, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.” So if you want to rule the tongue, first you have to rule the heart, you have to bring into the gates of your city good things (truth!), and then store them up in the treasure house of your memory, so that when you speak only good things come out. Good words, good things, the good life, starts with receiving the Spirit of God, the spirit of Christ, so that you can rule well your own spirit.And so this evening I want to briefly develop this idea of the person as a city, and I want to offer you three qualities of a great city, that you ought to pattern your life after, especially in this next season of life. #1 – A Great City Is A Place of Productive Work It says in Proverbs 12:24, “The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: But the slothful shall be under tribute.” And in Proverbs 22:29 it says, “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; He shall not stand before mean men.” Notice what Solomon presents as the path to success. It is not a short and quick path for one, in fact it is usually a long path that can at times feel monotonous, and yet which Scripture extols under the virtue of diligence. What is diligence? It is doing the right thing with a good attitude, day in and day out, especially when you do not feel like it. Diligence is that long obedience in the same direction. It is the grinding work of a young ox, who bears the yoke in his youth and yet plows in hope. Hope is the virtue that inspires the virtue of diligence, and without hope, people procrastinate, they suffer from analysis paralysis, or sometimes they give up entirely and become sluggards. And so if you want to cultivate diligence and a productive city, you must start by cultivating hope in God. God is the one who holds your life in His hands, and He wants you to be ambitious. He wants you to aspire to great things that will honor Him. Sloppy work does not honor God. Half-hearted effort does not honor God. Never taking a risk does not honor God. Hope on the other hand trusts God and then is decisive. Hope seeks out wise counsel, hears good advice, and then makes a decision and owns the consequences. Hope remembers Proverbs 24:15, “For a righteous man may fall seven times, but rises again.” So imagine within your city there is a central park, you could name it Hope...
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    23 分
  • Sermon: The Holy Trinity Pt. 1 - Trinity Within Me (John 14:15-17)

    Sermon: The Holy Trinity Pt. 1 - Trinity Within Me (John 14:15-17)
    2025/06/02
    The Holy Trinity Pt. 1 – Trinity Within Me Sunday, June 1st, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA John 14:15–17 Prayer O God, we thank you for fashioning us in your image, and that through reflection upon your image within us, we may come to understand in some very partial and imperfect way who you are as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so as we undertake this task now, of faith seeking understanding, give us light and life and grace, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. Introduction When you first became a Christian and received the washing of baptism for the forgiveness of your sins, whether you knew it or not, you were born again into the very life of the Trinity. Ever since that day, when the name of God was spoken over you, in accord with what Jesus says in Matthew 28:19, “baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” from that day onward the Trinity of Persons came into you and made you their own. The Apostle Paul says to those naughty Corinthians who were baptized and yet committing grievous sins, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? (1 Cor. 6:19).Jesus says here in John 14:17 that the Spirit, “dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”He says later in John 17, “I do not pray for these alone [referring to his disciples], but also for those who will believe in Me through their word [that’s us!]; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me…I in them, and You in Me” (John 17:20-21, 23).Have you wondered, what in the world does that mean? What does it mean for the One God to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and then for that Trinity of persons to indwell our soul? Christ in us, the Spirit in us, the Father who is in the Son within us. How does all this work?This is a little bit like asking, How does breathing keep you alive? We are all breathing. We all know how to breathe, but very few of us could draw an accurate diagram of the lungs, or explain how oxygen and carbon dioxide get exchanged, or how the autonomic nervous system makes us to inhale and exhale even when we are asleep. Explaining how breathing keeps us alive can be done, but it requires some work, some study and exploration of the human body, it requires you to learn a specialized vocabulary so you can identify different organs, and muscles, and chemical compounds. This is similar to becoming personally acquainted with the Holy Trinity. If there are unbelieving scientists who have dedicated their whole life to studying the human body, how much more should believing Christians give at least a little portion of their life, to knowing the God in whom we live and move and have our being? Even the very Trinity with us. It is a good and wonderful thing to study God’s creation, especially the human person. We are complex and fascinating creatures! But it is far greater and more glorious task to know the Creator and Maker Himself. If human beings are as intricate and glorious and mysterious as we are, how much more the one who designed it all? It says in Jeremiah 9:23-24, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me.” Jesus says similarly in John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Understanding and knowing God is the highest of all human pursuits. So much so that Jesus says it is eternal life to know Him. And so if God is the supreme source and object of all human happiness, the very end for which we were created, and if He has revealed Himself in Christ and His Word, how can we not count all things as loss for the surpassing worth/value of knowing Jesus Christ our Lord? (Phil. 3:8). This is the reason and the motivation for the hard work of our faith seeking understanding. Of believing the Word of God and then trying to understand that Word we already believe and breathe. The Church Father St. Augustine says at the beginning of his treatise On the Trinity, “in no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry more laborious, or the discovery of truth more profitable.” In other words, if you want to know God, it is going to cost you something, indeed cost you everything, but the cost is worth it. Or Jesus says in Matthew 13:44, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” The Trinity is like the treasure hidden in a field you already own. It’s yours, you are the field! And so lest those words from St. Augustine daunt us or discourage us from trying to explore...
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    1 時間 3 分
  • Sermon: The Divine Liturgy Pt. 7 - Tongues & Interpretation

    Sermon: The Divine Liturgy Pt. 7 - Tongues & Interpretation
    2025/05/26
    The Divine Liturgy Pt. 7 – Tongues & Interpretation Sunday, May 25th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA 1 Corinthians 14:1-40 Prayer O Holy Father we ask that you would now cleanse our tongues and lips from every impurity. Remove far from us vanity and lies, that we might become valiant for the truth on earth. We ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. Introduction For the last two weeks we have been studying the topic of Charismatic Grace. And thus far we have seen from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, that God has given some measure of Charismatic Grace to every person that is united to Jesus Christ, and then each of us are called to steward that grace, our gifts, for the building up of Christ’s body. We said that a good way to identify our gifts is by looking for where our Desire, our Ability, and the Needs of others all align. Because as members together of one another, our gifts are not given primarily for our own personal benefit, but rather for other people’s benefit (for the common good). So while Sanctifying Grace is given by God for our own individual salvation, Gratuitous/Charismatic Grace is given to bring other people to salvation. And this is why in between 1 Corinthians 12 and our text of 1 Corinthians 14, the Apostle Paul dedicates an entire chapter to extolling the spiritual gift that is superior to all others, the best gift, which is charity, or supernatural love. Charity is that most special love which comes down from God, leads us up to God, unites us to God, and makes us to desire God for everyone else. God is THE GIFT we want to share. So charity is one of those gifts from the Holy Spirit that is both a Sanctifying Grace to us personally, but it is also the grace that is given to inform, guide, and animate all our lesser gifts. So while we have been studying the importance of the gifts of Prophecy, and this morning Tongues, we must not forget that these charismatic gifts are a temporary means to an eternal end, whereas Charity is both a means and an end in and of itself. Charity is the best gift to pursue. This is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:1-2, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” And then he says a little later in verses 8-10, “Charity never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.” Meaning, when we see God face to face, when that perfect vision of God comes, there will be no need for prophecy, or tongues, or preaching, or miracles, or apostles, or evangelists. Because we will have arrived at God who is our destination and First Love. And the charity which unites us to God in this life, will continue to unite us to God in the next. So even faith and hope will pass away, but charity/supernatural love shall remain. Paul says something very similar about the importance of physical exercise in comparison with spiritual exercise in 1 Timothy 4:8, “For bodily exercise profits a little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” Summary: So in this life we are to be up early busy in God’s gymnasium, cultivating and exercising our spiritual gifts, our virtues, and most of all love which makes us God-like (godly). If love for God and loving people for the sake of God is what your whole life is aimed it (if that is the reason for your existence), then you will know how to use and steward lesser gifts, like prophesy, tongues, or whatever other gifts you may have. So with all that by way of review and introduction, let us now consider the gifts of Tongues and Interpretation. Outline So there are three questions I want to answer in this sermon: Q1. What is speaking in tongues?Q2. What is interpretation?Q3. In what sense are these gifts operative today? Q#1 – What is speaking in tongues? As we saw with the gift of prophesy, to speak in tongues can refer to multiple and different activities. And if we survey the Scriptures, we discover there are two main senses in which someone can be said to speak in a tongue. One is supernatural, the other can be merely natural.1. First as a supernatural gift is what we find at Pentecost in Acts 2. There, the disciples suddenly and miraculously are able to speak in foreign languages. Let me read to you verses 1-11 of Acts 2 and notice as I read that these are all real human languages they are speaking which other people can understand and interpret. “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, ...
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    53 分
  • Sermon: The Divine Liturgy Pt. 6 - Prophets & Prophecy (1 Corinthians 14)

    Sermon: The Divine Liturgy Pt. 6 - Prophets & Prophecy (1 Corinthians 14)
    2025/05/19
    The Divine Liturgy Pt. 6 – Prophets & Prophecy Sunday, May 18th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA 1 Corinthians 14:1-40 Prayer Father, we ask now that by the preaching of Your Word, we may grow up together in maturity, thoroughly equipped for every good work. We ask for Your Holy Spirit to enlighten the eyes of our understanding, and we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. Introduction Last week we considered the gift of Charismatic Grace, and we observed that all Christians who are united to Christ Jesus, receive from Him some spiritual gift (or gifts), which are intended to build up (edify) Christ’s body, the church. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:7, “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.”And in Ephesians 4:7, “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”And again in 1 Peter 4:10 it says, “As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”And so we learned that all of us have some spiritual gift to steward for the good of others, and we can try to identify our gift (or gifts) by asking: Where does our Desire, our Ability, and the Needs of others all line up? Where does my 1) Desire to bless others, 2) my Ability to bless others, and 3) the Need for someone to blessed all find harmony? Because that is where spiritual gifts most frequently reside. God has so designed the body to function as a diversity within unity, as distinct members with different functions who are all united together for the common good. This is what Christian community should look like. And so Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 13 to describe that bond of unity, which is supernatural love, also known as charity. Unlike natural and ordinary love which even unbelievers have for themselves and their children, charity has God as for its object and loves other people for the sake of God. Charity is supernatural love in that we receive it from above as a gift of grace, and by it we can are able to love people who are not naturally loveable. And this is why Paul says that charity is the best of all spiritual gifts, and without it all the other charismatic graces profit us nothing. He says in 1 Corinthians 13:2-3, “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not charity, it profits me nothing.” And then he concludes his exaltation of love in verse 13 by saying, “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” So where there is supernatural love animating our spiritual gifts, there you will find peace, order, and unity. But where there is envy, pride, and selfish desire, there you will find confusion, disputing, and every evil work (James 3:16). So Paul is writing to correct and instruct the Corinthian presbytery, the churches in Corinth, in how to use their spiritual gifts. And having established the primacy and superiority of love as the best gift, he then dedicates all of chapter 14 to explaining how the gifts of prophecy and tongues are to be used in the church. And so this morning will consider the gift of prophecy, and then next week we’ll consider the gift of tongues. And we will not actually spend very much time in 1 Corinthians 14 this morning because we need to do quite a lot background work in other parts of Scripture before we can rightly interpret it. So this sermon will be setting the stage for addressing tongues and other spiritual gifts next week. Outline So there are three questions I want to answer in this sermon: Q1. What is a prophet?Q2. How is a true prophet distinguished from a false prophet?Q3. In what sense if any may someone be called a prophet today? Q#1 – What is a prophet? We read in 1 Samuel 9:9, “(Formerly in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he spoke thus: ‘Come, let us go to the seer’; for he who is now called a prophet was formerly called a seer.)”So the Bible itself gives us an origin story for why prophets are called prophets. And it was because they had a supernatural ability to see, with sight being a metaphor for knowing. So a seer receives divine inspiration that lifts up the eyes of the mind, and then they receive divine revelation to understand what they saw. And so a seer was a person with knowledge (intellectual sight) of things divine. And thus, before they were called prophets they were called by this action of seeing, they were seers. Now what exactly did these seers see? When we study the writings of the prophets (whether Moses, or David, or Isaiah), we discover that there are two unique senses in which they have supernatural sight. 1. They can see events far off in the future that only God ...
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    57 分
  • Sermon: The Divine Liturgy Pt. 5 - Charismatic Grace

    Sermon: The Divine Liturgy Pt. 5 - Charismatic Grace
    2025/05/12
    The Divine Liturgy Pt. 5 – Charismatic Grace Sunday, May 11th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA 1 Corinthians 12:1–31 Prayer O Father, we praise You for Your Son, and for His mystical body into which we have been baptized. We praise you because Your church is fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are thy works, and that our soul knows very well. Remove from us now all sin and ignorance, grant to us knowledge and virtue, that we might be good stewards of your grace, for we ask this all in Jesus’ name, Amen. Introduction Children, I have a true story to tell you. When I was little, maybe 7 or 8 years old. I went to church with my parents, and I was sitting in the pew, just like you are right now, listening to the pastor talk. When all of a sudden, the pastor tore a page out of his Bible, crumpled it up, put it in his mouth, and then ate it! Now is that crazy? I think it’s crazy. I thought it was crazy back then, and I still think it is crazy today. And yet, sometimes God tells His prophets and apostles to do crazy things. The prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 3:1) and the Apostle John (Rev. 10:9) were both told to eat the word of God while they were in a vision. And so while they did not literally have to eat a scroll or a book, what they did have to do was understand and digest and become one with God’s Word so that they could preach it to others.Now there were other times when the prophets did have to literally/really do some uncomfortable things. And that was their special job and assignment from God. For example: Isaiah had to walk naked (at least partially naked) and barefoot as a sign of warning and judgment (Isaiah 20). It says in Isaiah 20:2-4, “At the same time spake the Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, And put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. And the Lord said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot Three years for a sign and wonder Upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia; So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, Young and old, naked and barefoot, Even with their buttocks uncovered, To the shame of Egypt.” So sometimes, God tells the prophet to do something crazy in order to get his message across. Isaiah’s nakedness was a sign of future judgment upon Egypt, and a warning not to trust Egypt and their nakedness, but to trust God instead. Likewise, God told the Prophet Ezekiel to shave the hair off his head and his beard and then burn it. And this was to be a sign of God’s fiery judgment on Jerusalem (Ezekiel 5). Ezekiel also had to lay on his left side for 390 days, and then lay on his right side for 40 days, as a sign of the siege warfare to come upon Israel and Judah (Ezekiel 4). The Prophet Jeremiah had to take off his undergarment (his loincloth or girdle) and hide it in the hole of a rock. And then after many days, God said to him, “Arise, go to Euphrates, and take the girdle from thence, which I commanded thee to hide there. Then I went to Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it: and, behold, the girdle was marred, it was profitable for nothing. Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Thus saith the Lord, After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing” (Jer. 13:6-13). So sometimes God tells his prophets to do crazy things, but He always has a good reason for doing so. The Bible says that God is love (1 John 4:8), and that He desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). Therefore, in addition to the grace that sanctifies us, and makes us into Christians, God also gives to his saints another kind of grace, a grace that we call charismatic grace, which is given to lead other people to repentance and salvation. The Old Testament Prophets are just one example of such extraordinarily gifted saints, and what we find in the New Testament and in our text of 1 Corinthians 12, is that God has given a measure of grace to everyone that is a member of Christ’s body. This charismatic grace often goes by the name of spiritual gifts, and it is those gifts that shall be our focus this morning. And so as we conclude our series on the The Divine Liturgy, our study of worship, I want us to consider three questions that arise from 1 Corinthians 12 which is all about charismatic grace. Outline Q1. What is charismatic grace (or the charismatic gifts)?Q2. How does God intend for our different gifts to work together?Q3. How can you identify and steward the particular gifts that God has given to you? Q#1 – What is charismatic grace (or the charismatic gifts)? Note first the ...
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    45 分
  • Sermon: The Divine Liturgy Pt. 4 - A Theology of Singing (Colossians 3:16)

    Sermon: The Divine Liturgy Pt. 4 - A Theology of Singing (Colossians 3:16)
    2025/04/21
    The Divine Liturgy Pt. 4 – A Theology of Singing Sunday, April 20th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Colossians 3:16 Prayer O Father, we thank You for the new life you have given us in Christ. Teach us to put off the old man with his sinful ways and put on the new, as elect of God, holy and beloved. We ask for your merciful Spirit to be among us now, in Jesus’ name, Amen. Introduction Every Lord’s Day we sing ten songs in our worship service. Ten. And I think, that’s a lot of singing because my voice is usually tired by the end (or depending on the songs sometimes halfway through). But then add to those ten songs our monthly Psalm Sing. On the first Sunday of every month, we sing ten songs here in the service, and then we go over to the Fellowship Hall and Joe teaches us to sing some new songs, we sing old favorites, and sometimes we even try to learn parts (emphasis on the try)! Recently the teenagers and the children have decided that all this singing is not enough, and so they have requested (and been given permission) to have another Psalm Sing of their own. And so these Psalty Youngbloods, as they are called, meet in the sanctuary after service and sing some more.Add to that also the CKA school choir, their morning Capella, the men’s Reformation Roundtable, and even our Ladies Fellowship has some singing at it. When the elders gather every Tuesday morning for our elder meeting we begin with a song.Why all this singing? Why so much of it? The answer is: Because we are Christians. And Christians are the people who have resurrection hope. We were dead and now we are alive. And so really the question ought to be: How can we not sing given all that God in Christ has done for us?! It says in 1 Peter 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” It says in Psalm 30:11-12, “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, To the end [for the purpose] that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.” And so, when God’s mercy grabbed hold of you in your pitiful miserable state, His mercy begot you again to a living hope. And so for the Christian, the question is not Why all this singing?, the question is, How can we not sing given all that God has done for us in the past, is doing for us in the present, and has promised to do for us in the future? It says in 2 Peter 1:3, “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” Paul says in Romans 8:32, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” So when you have been given and promised everything good in the whole universe, and when you have the Supreme Good in whom all other goods live and move and have their being, you cannot help but sing to the Lord with joy and thanksgiving and praise. And so, because singing is such an essential element of our worship, and an essential quality of the Christian life, it is most fitting that on this Resurrection Easter Sunday, as we are in the middle of our series on worship and liturgy, I give to you A Theology of Singing. The what, the why, and the how of singing Psalms unto the Lord. Outline 1. First, I will answer the question What is singing? And more specifically the singing of Psalms.2. Second, we’ll consider the Why of Psalm Singing, why do we prioritize the singing of Scripture and the Psalter instead of other songs we might sing.3. Third, we’ll consider the How of Psalm Singing. In what manner does Scripture tell us to sing psalms unto the Lord? Question #1 – What is singing? At the most basic level, singing is glorified speech. It is words elevated and set to music. And so just as our words when directed to God are called prayer. So also, music and singing that is directed to God is prayer glorified, prayer set to music. St. Thomas defines a song as “the exultation of a mind, dwelling on things eternal, breaking forth aloud.” So just as prayer is the ascent of the mind to God, so singing is the ascent of the mind, together with music, breaking forth in praise. David sings in Psalm 141:2, “Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense.” And so to apply this image to singing, our words are like the spices, and the music and singing is like the fire that causes those spices to ascend to God as a pleasing fragrance. Now recall from last week that our whole worship service is a back-and-forth dialog between God and man, between Christ and the Church, between Minister and Congregation. And since all our worship is initiated by God and a response to what ...
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    1 時間 3 分